With the festive season approaching, it’s prime time to kickstart your Etsy holiday preparation using Marmalead for optimal keyword integration. Today on the Jam, we look closer into how to efficiently use Marmalead to target potential customers during the upcoming holiday season.
Kick-Off Your Etsy Holiday Prep Right Now
Whether it’s Christmas or any other festivity, the strategies we discuss today apply universally to gear up your Etsy shop for an increased sale of products.
The golden rule is to embed the best seasonal keywords in your Etsy listings to maximize your potential for traffic.
We have some steps and best practices for you guys to follow here. This is how we would use Marmalead for our Etsy holiday prep.
Best Practices for Etsy Holiday Prep
Here is a roadmap to follow using Marmalead for successful Etsy holiday preparation this year:
Identifying Keywords to Replace
Begin by pinpointing the existing keywords in your listings that need to be replaced. Scrutinize your listings to identify potential gaps where new keywords can be introduced. Prioritize listings that already generate substantial traffic, termed as “hook listings,” to further enhance their performance.
Ask yourself: Where can you sprinkle new Etsy holiday keywords into your listings? If you have listings missing tags, that’s an obvious opportunity to do that.
However, you should also look at listings already bringing your shop traffic. These are your hook listings that already perform well in search and engagement.
Bring in more traffic by incorporating holiday keywords in place of the underperforming keywords on these listings. This could be an excellent opportunity to pull some shoppers in who would otherwise not find your products.
Preserving Your Best Listings
While optimizing your Etsy listings, exercise caution to not disrupt the existing successful listings in your shop. Utilize Etsy Stats or Google Analytics to discern ineffective keywords and replace them with holiday keywords that offer more potential.
This goes without saying, but be careful you don’t ruin your best listings. These listings are already bringing traffic to your Etsy shop right now — and you don’t want to mess that up.
Here’s how to determine which keywords are working:
An excellent way to determine which keywords are working is to go into your Etsy Stats. Here, you’ll be able to see which keywords people are actually visiting that listing for.
Look at the tags on your listings and the keywords Etsy shows are bringing you traffic. Which titles are underperforming or doing nothing at all? That’s probably the best place to start when it comes to using new holiday keywords.
Booting Old Tags for New Etsy Holiday Keywords
Compare the actual keywords that are bringing you traffic versus the tags on your listings. Any tags (or portions of those tags) that aren’t bringing you traffic need to go.
Once you’ve found keywords that aren’t bringing you traffic on a successful listing, you’ve identified the tags that aren’t contributing to its success.
And that’s a good candidate for a keyword to replace.
Remember this strategy when it comes to optimizing any of your listings. Whether you want to test out new keywords or if you want to drop in some Etsy holiday keywords, this is one of the ways to do it.
Using Marmalead’s Storm Tool for Brainstorming
Once you’ve removed Etsy tags that aren’t bringing you traffic, it’s time to start brainstorming new keywords. Marmalead’s Storm tool stands as your ally in brainstorming and selecting effective Etsy keywords. Use past successful keywords as a starting point and progressively build on them.
Start by seeding your list in Storm with keywords that may have worked for you in the past (or keywords that are working right now).
For example, if this isn’t your shop’s first season, you might have some holiday keywords that worked well last year. This would be a great spot to kickstart your research instead of starting with a blank page.
Still not sure where to start? Follow this tutorial:
Filtering Out Unrelated Keywords
Ensure that the selected keywords are pertinent to your products to maintain relevance and enhance discoverability.
During your Etsy holiday prep, you’ll discover that there might be thousands of Etsy holiday keywords related to Christmas, but not all of them apply to your listings.
So, if you’re not selling Christmas wreath-related items, all those wreath keywords won’t apply to you.
That’s why it’s essential to weed out the keywords that have nothing to do with your listings.
Related: Here’s what to sell on Etsy to make more money
Compiling a Keyword List
Compile a list of promising keywords using Marmalead to not only keep a track of current data but also to facilitate easy reference in the upcoming years.
If any Etsy holiday keywords have worked for you in the past, save them to a list so you can remember them for next year.
This is one of the benefits of holiday keyword prep: You’re doing all of this prep work up front, and when you use Marmalead, your work will be saved for next year. And this is something that you can benefit from every thereafter.
Staying On Top of Holiday Trends
When you put keywords in a list in Marmalead, we keep those keywords up to date. So when you show up for the next holiday season, it’ll already show you which keywords are forecasting to do well for that holiday.
This means you can just keep returning to your saved lists, and you’re not starting your Etsy holiday prep from scratch every time.
And you definitely want to continue adding to those lists every year because new holiday trends will continue to pop up.
If some things are trendy this year but will fall out of style next year, consider dropping those keywords from your list. Keep your lists groomed, and you’ll always have actionable Etsy keywords on hand.
Preseason Preparation
Strategically incorporate the strongest and most pertinent keywords into your listings ahead of the holiday season, keeping in mind the key dates:
Halloween
- Picks up Aug 1
- Peaks Oct 3
- Tapers off after Oct 31
Advent
- Picks up Sep 15
- Peaks Oct 15
- Tapers off after Dec 25
Thanksgiving
- Picks up Sept 1
- Peaks Nov 4
- Tapers off after Nov 28
Christmas
- Picks up Sept 1
- Peaks Nov 28
- Tapers off by Jan 2
Christmas Jumper Day
- Picks up Oct 1
- Peaks Dec 5
- Tapers off after Dec 25
Hanukkah
- Picks up Oct 10
- Peaks Nov 9
- Tapers off after Dec 10
As soon as people sense that holiday feeling, they’ll get excited about the upcoming holiday. Buyers will go to Etsy to explore what’s going on for the forthcoming holidays.
So even if they’re not ready to put something in the cart and buy it yet, they will start rolling the gears ahead to begin window shopping.
Get your Etsy products on their favorite list, and they might come back later in the month to make a purchase.
Tapping into Etsy’s Marketing for Holiday Prep
Stay a step ahead by aligning your preparation with Etsy’s marketing schedule. Ensure your listings are optimized to get featured in Etsy’s holiday newsletters and social media content, amplifying your visibility and reach.
Don’t forget about the holiday newsletter Etsy sends out or all of Etsy’s marketing and social media content leading up to that particular day.
This content aims to bring Etsy shoppers to the marketplace during the holidays.
For example, if Etsy shares a holiday gift guide for Christmas-related items, this will come weeks before Christmas. So they’ll do this well before the holidays when they’re curating those lists, featured posts, and featured listings.
Of course, Etsy needs to find those items first, get them approved, etc.
And they won’t find your products if you haven’t optimized your holiday listings yet.
So, get ahead of Etsy’s marketing.
Take note when Etsy sends out their marketing communications. Refer to this list of holidays above to see when Etsy starts picking up its holiday marketing efforts.
Prep your holiday listings ahead of Etsy’s schedule so when they start searching, your listings will appear. Remember, Etsy won’t find your listings if your Etsy holiday keywords aren’t added yet.
Cyber Monday Strategy
Prepare your listings to leverage the surge in traffic during the Cyber Monday sales event, potentially featuring your products in seasonal sales events for added exposure.
Cyber Monday on Etsy is a big shopping sale ahead of Christmas, so you’ll want to ensure your listings are set up well forth of time.
This will ensure you’re included when buyers search with Cyber Monday keywords.
Pro tip: Consider offering discounts on some listings to actively participate in the Cyber Monday event.
Final thoughts
Embarking on your Etsy holiday prep with Marmalead’s guidance not only equips you with a robust strategy for this season but also lays a strong foundation for the years to come.
Embrace these tips for a prosperous holiday season, and we wish you the best of luck! Let’s gear up for a rewarding season of sales.
Happy selling!
